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There is little point comparing this new series of LCD TVs from Melbourne company
Kogan Technologies with say one of Sony’s Bravias - the two are simply not in the same league. It is cheap though, and does come with an impressive list of features for the price.
Available in both 19” and 22” flavours, Kogan’s pair of Pro LCD TVs are an all-in-one solution designed for a range of activities. The units both feature a WSXGA Wide display (1440 x 900), integrated slot-loading DVD player, SD digital/analogue tuner and a host of handy ports, and everything tucks conveniently into the back of the display.
While the TV can be used to watch DVDs and free-to-air channels, the inputs for composite video, component video, VGA, HMDI, SD/MMC cards and USB devices present some useful features not always found on all-in-one TVs. We gave each of these the once over with mixed results.
Attaching the 22” display to a computer provided sharp, bright results thanks to its 1000:1 contrast ratio and 5ms response time. Next we hooked up a PS3 over HDMI which perhaps wasn’t as crisp as we would’ve liked, but both games and Blue-ray movies did bring out the best in the display.
The DVB mode was a marked improvement over the analogue TV reception, but again we felt this wasn’t as sharp as a dedicated set-top-box delivers. Digital photos were a breeze to navigate straight off a memory card, but it was the playback of movie files from a USB device we were hoping to be impressed by most.
Unfortunately this feature is crippled by the limited support for file formats and video codecs. While it did play most of our movies in DivX format from a portable hard drive and from disc, some AVIs failed to load, as did MP4, WMV and MPG files we also tried. Those that did work looked great, however, so carefully planned file conversions would solve this short coming.
After calibrating the display there was still evidence of bleed through at the top and bottom from the backlight which was mainly noticeable watching movies, though viewing angles were quite acceptable from a reasonable distance.
While the Kogan PRO series is far from perfect, it does offer a viable solution for running a host of activities off the one display. At $449 (19") and $599 (22") you might be swayed to overlook a few shortcomings.